Cryptocurrency custody company Copper has been doing its own shopping, looking for a buyer willing to pay about $500 million for the platform, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald has been appointed to help sell the copper, people familiar with the matter said.
Koper and Cantor did not respond to requests for comment.
The crown jewel of Copper is the ClearLoop settlement system, which enables network participants to conduct delivery-on-payment (DvP) within escrow without having to bring assets on-chain, thus eliminating settlement risk.
Copper shut down its enterprise hosting business in 2023 to focus on ClearLoop, which served many institutional companies. The firm has more than 1,000 active counterparties and a monthly notional trading volume of more than $50 billion, according to its website.
Copper was said to be considering an IPO earlier this year, potentially following in the footsteps of cryptocurrency custodian Bitgo, with which Copper formed a partnership for the ClearLoop app. However, the cryptocurrency IPO market has been stagnant this year as Bitcoin trades below $80,000 and artificial intelligence sucks up most of the funds.
Meanwhile, dealmaking in the cryptocurrency market has been brisk this year, with crypto-native companies, traditional firms and fintech firms all looking to expand their digital asset capabilities through acquisitions.
Earlier this year, Mastercard agreed to acquire British stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK for $1.8 billion. Kraken parent company Payward agreed to acquire derivatives platform Bitnomial, while CoinDesk owner Bullish announced a $4.2 billion acquisition of Equiniti, aiming to combine transfer agency services with tokenization infrastructure.
Just this week, London-based Standard Chartered said it would buy the remaining shares it doesn’t already own in its cryptocurrency custody subsidiary Zodia Custody. The bank’s venture capital arm has reportedly taken a stake in cryptocurrency trading firm GSR at a valuation of more than $1 billion. A few weeks later, the deal was done.